


Whomp, There it Is.

by Everything Is Ampersands (Mandergee)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Knotholes, Molly Weasley doesn't get enough backstory, Other, Treehugger gets a whole new meaning, Trees also need love, bough-chicka-bough-bough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 06:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6412393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandergee/pseuds/Everything%20Is%20Ampersands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ron and his mother make a trip to Hogwarts to visit the grounds, an odd daydream reveals to him a little more about his mother than he ever wanted to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whomp, There it Is.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know why. Don't ask me why. I couldn't tell you.

 

“The Whomping Willow is nothing to be afraid of, mum.” Molly Weasley had, to her youngest son’s ever-growing amusement, been staring absently at the rather imposing tree for well over fifteen minutes, and Ron could swear the Willow had eventually begun to stare  _ back _ . “Mum?  _ Mum. _ ”

“Yes, Ron- I’m well aware that he isn’t quite as imposing as he appears, dear.” There was a fondness- a strange glimmer in his mother’s eye that Ron found unsettling, and he chose to disregard it as she began to walk a path around the Whomping Willow’s wide and sturdy trunk. Her fingers reached out, caressing the rough bark as she moved, and an odd silence fell over the trio while Ron watched the woman he’d always understood as a bit...well, his  _ mother _ , until he’d seen the way she gazed up at a  _ tree _ . 

“The knothole is still there,” She murmured after several more moments of now uncomfortable silence, and Ron stared up from the single dry place he’d found on the ground not far from the canopy of bare, skeletal branches. “It’s worn, now.”

“Can we go, mum?” They’d come by broomstick, and although he was fully capable of going home on his own Ron felt compelled to wait for his mother- something nagged at the back of his mind that were he to  _ go  _ without her she may never come back. Or he’d have to send his father back after her, and as they’d both been acting oddly as of late, the worry persisted that somehow he might never see them again. 

“Not yet, dear.” Ron leaned back, let his elbows come into contact with the rocky earth and wished he was as good as Hermione at conjuring up... _ anything _ more comfortable. But he hadn’t thought to bring anything along for the ride, never imagining they’d spend as much time on the outer Hogwarts grounds as they were, and as he found himself a more comfortable lounging spot Ron began to drift into an absent daydream.

~~

_ “You’re too good to me.” The brilliant sunlight lit her head on fire, and Molly Weasley beamed at the ragged trunk of the currently idle Whomping Willow as it reached one long, slender branch down to toy with her springy curls. She was young again, vibrant and beautiful, and the Willow knew as well as she did that as it would age onward and forever for decades to come...Molly would eventually age and reach the end of mortality- something neither of them were ready to face. “But Arthur is real, my darling- he’s a man, flesh and blood, and he’s promised to love me until the day we die.” _

_ “ _ _ You _ _ promised me that we would never speak of the day that would happen, Molly. I can’t help what I am.” _

_ “No guilt,” She admonished. “It isn’t fair to accuse me as if I have a way to prevent this.” _

_ “You're a witch, my darling one. You can do anything you set your mind to. And if your mind wishes to be with me forever- why can’t you find it in yourself to make it so?” _

_ “You don’t know what you ask of me.”  _

_ “I do.” Lush green leaves trembled as the Willow moved again, and a single branch quivered as it reached for her cheek to caress gently. “Dark magic is nothing to be afraid of if you truly love me, Molly. If you were to find the Sorcerer’s stone and allow it to make the two of us immortal we could be together to the end of time.” _

_ “And will I turn myself into a tree as well?” Her fingers ventured forth to circle the edges of a lopsided knothole, the ragged sigh that came from the Willow prompting her lips upward in the approximation of a smile. “Shall I live alongside you, forever younger but never dying so that we could touch our branches together in the wind?” _

_ “Of course not,”  _

_ “Then what would you have me do?” Frustration crept into her voice and she moved away, angrily pacing across the rocky ground and spinning back in a wave of brightly colored skirts. “Arthur can offer stability- a  _ _ future _ _ with children and a home.” _

_ “My love-” _

_ “No. I can’t do what you’re asking of me. I love you-” For a moment tears glistened in her eyes, and a veil of red covered her eyes as Molly turned away again. Her voice was choked with desperation, but she continued on. “But I can’t sacrifice my morality to be with you, not when I can be with Arthur.” _

_ “He won’t give you the life you deserve, Molly.” _

_ “I think he will,” She replied softly, with a last gentle touch to the knothole before withdrawing a wand from the folds of her skirt and holding it high in the air. “In his own way.” _

~~~

“Hmrph.” The sound of thrashing woke him from...was he sleeping? _What rubbish was that?_  Scrubbing his eyes wearily with dirty fists, Ron rolled himself into a sitting position and glanced about as he regained his bearings. He was no longer pressed against the bare earth but seated on a tattered quilt beneath the branches of a smaller, leafy tree, and as he gained stock of his surroundings he realized his mother was seated nearby, engrossed in a book. “Mum?”

“I was hoping you’d wake up soon, dear. Your father is expecting us home for dinner.”

“That dream was bonkers.” His clothes smelled faintly of moist soil, and Ron sniffed at his sleeves experimentally, trying to determine if he would need to  _ change _ before dinner. “You-”

“I what, sweetheart?” There was bark in her hair- he hadn’t imagined it, and his eyes fastened onto the oddity as his mother began to mark her place in the book and climb to her feet before offering a hand to her son. "Hurry along now- we'll be late, and you know how difficult it is to get your father to the table if he's already on another project."

"Yeah. 'Course." The sleepiness began to ebb as Ron stumbled after his mother toward the waiting brooms, and when they rose into the air he could have  _sworn_ he saw a thick drop of sap tumbling down a bare patch of trunk.

The Whomping Willow  _whomps_ \- he told himself as they disappeared into the clouds. Dream or not, trees most certainly didn't  _cry._

Or did they?


End file.
